What the fucking fuck??

Did three credit card companies throw me under the bus simply because of where I live?????


The lowest credit score I have seen for me or my husband in the last 10 years is over 800. We have never been late on anything ever. Are congenital savers, and have never once carried a balance or gone over the limit on our cards. Yet, over the last year Capitol One (his card only), Citibank (my card only) and Bank of America (joint card) have sent me letters telling me they are (A) cutting my credit line to less than half what is was and (B) jacking up my interest rate to unbelievable heights. A call to them only got the answer that they only did so after checking my credit history. Which was confusing since nothing has changed in my credit history and a check of all our reports shows nothing out of the ordinary. We have had all of these cards around 20 years or longer. In fact, they've all previously raised our limits so many times that the cut in credit limits didn't bother me except that for some bizarre reason it made both our credit score tank 50-80 points depending on which credit bureau calculated it.

We have been having a bit of a crisis at my house since we took in my husband's disabled uncle (he takes and hides incoming mail among other things) and about 4 months ago I decided to change the mailing address for paper bills and correspondence for most everything to a Kinkos mailbox a few blocks from where I work.

In the last two weeks I've gotten congratulations letters from all three cards telling me they are both dropping my rate to nearly what it was and increasing my credit limit by $1000 or more (one increased me $3300). So I'm thinking WTF?

Today it occurred to me that the demographics where I live has changed dramatically over 20 years. Nearly 80% of the kids in my county's school system qualify for free/reduced lunches. 40% of the households in my part of this county are at or below the poverty level. My county's school system recently lost it's accreditation because the school board was full of asswipes and naturally home values and sales are struggling as a result.

By contrast, the part of town where I work is populated mainly by people with advanced degrees. The cost of entry into even a 1BR condo is $500,000 or more. I can't prove it but I think I've been redlined.

Find out who's on your state banking committees. And if local TV has an ombudman, call him, too.

This is about the fourth thread on this subject I've seen in the past few hours at DU.
The credit lenders have gone mad on a larger scale than ever before.

and all the way down the line, no one has it, so everyone gets jacked

this is the nightmare for which we are not prepared

Credit cards and banks are a big part of what got us into this problem. I try to stay away from them.

That's the phrase the credit card industry calls people who always pay on time and don't carry a balance. You've been a bad customer and haven't been generating lots of fees for them.

Changing your billing zip code probably puts you in an area where lots of people carry large balances, making tempting you to spend is profitable for them.

pay it each month - this past month - they blocked my limit for 10 days after I paid it in full (250), for the first time ever, and said it was a standard procedure when you make a payment from your bank account - but it has never happened before.

However, whether I pay them interest or not they still make 2% on my purchases. I used to charge anything and everything on my Citibank because of the rewards. Granted if I spent every cent of my take home pay on bills and purchases paid on the Citi then their 2% would come to somewhere about 500 bucks a year.

They probably do hate my guts.

Credit card companies are doing that to people depending on where they shop. Shop at Nieman Marcus, Bloomingdale's and Tiffany's? No problem, your card stays where it is. Shop at Wally's, Target or K Mart? That puppy is going to have a low limit and it's going to cost you if you don't pay it off every month. Early.

It seems if you live in an economically struggling area of the country, they're going to redline you, too.

Somebody had better start regulating these bastards and soon. Oh, and repeal that terrible bankruptcy bill.

I attempted to cancel my BofA credit card, and they immediately offered to eliminate their annual fee and drop the interest rates to what I was paying for the higher of my 2 credit union cards. (6.9% and 9.9%)

The credit reporting companies are the slimiest, most underhanded pricks in all the financial mess. They manipulate your score at will and make it insanely impossible to access and correct the errors they PURPOSELY inject into your report.
I had a problem a few years and did a little research.Over 70% SEVENTY PERCENT of credit reports have errors serious enough to lower a score. These errors are created by the reporting companies for the purpose of messing with your score.
My score went to hell, credit line was lowered, my car insurance doubled, and on and on because Equifax injected a simple statement: account settled by agreement with customer.
My credit card company never reported any such problem but it took me almost a year to get it off my report.
Do not trust them.

Banks are criminals, like the mob they go after people with money and don't waste their time on "deadbeats". Take this as constructive criticism when I say "wake the fuck up". The U.S. is a fascist country now, run by corporate interests. Obama may change that, may not, we'll see. In the meantime, may I also suggest reading a few books on corrupt economies, such as Russia, the Ukraine and others. What those countries all did was integrate organized crime figures into business and politics and the U.S. is the same way now.

No Wallymart for me - but I have whipped it out at a dollar store more than once over the last 20 years.